The value of Facebook and Youtube is their amazing ability to reach huge potential audiences for advertisers as well as their ability (esp Facebook) to collect

The value of Facebook and Youtube is their amazing ability to reach huge potential audiences for advertisers as well as their ability (esp Facebook) to collect large sums of valuable personal information. Reddit being the fourth most visited website in the US has the potential for people and companies to reach huge audiences. I can see where people are stuck in the mentality that places like this are just "another website". But the point is now these places are reaching unprecedented scales on an order of magnitude higher than the traditional webpages of the late 90's early 2000's that they can be huge businesses themselves.